The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service sponsored the Eating & Health (EH) Module of the American Time Use Survey (ATUS). The ATUS is sponsored by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. The purpose of this document is to provide information about the variables available on the ATUS EH Module data files: the EH Respondent file and the EH Activity file. The EH Module data files are currently available for 2014 and contain information gathered through the 2014 ATUS interviews. All EH Module questions were asked at the end of the ATUS interview. The supplement surveys individuals aged 15 and up from a nationally representative sample of approximately 2,100 sample households each month. Below are the main variables of interest:
There are a total of 11212 samples in the dataset. Here is the data availability for each variable.
Top 20 positively correlated variables
Top 20 negatively correlated variables
Sample Count: 10637
Calculation: weight (kg) / [height (m)]2
## Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
## 13.00 23.60 26.60 27.77 30.70 73.60
Sample Count: 10712
Self-Reported Response: How much do you weight without shoes? (in pounds)
Note: EUWGT is bottomcoded to 98 lbs and topcoded to 340 lbs.
## Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
## 98.0 145.0 170.0 176.2 200.0 340.0
Sample Count: 11051
Self-Reported Response: How tall are you without shoes? (in inches)
Note: EUHGT is bottomcoded to 56 inches and topcoded to 77 inches
## Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
## 56.00 64.00 66.00 66.62 70.00 77.00
Sample Count: 11128
Self-Reported Response: In general, would you say that your physical health was excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor?
Self-Reported Response: During the past 7 days, did you participate in any physical activities or exercises for fitness and health such as running, bicycling, working out in a gym, walking for exercise, or playing sports? (Sample Count: 11155)
Self-Reported Response: How many times over the past 7 days did you take part in these activities? (Sample Count: 6993)
## Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
## 1.000 3.000 4.000 4.193 5.000 38.000
Self-Reported Response: Which of the following statements best describes the amount of food eaten in your household in the last 30 days - enough food to eat, sometimes not enough to eat, or often not enough to eat? (Sample Count: 11161)
Self-Reported Response: Thinking back over the last 7 days, did you purchase any: prepared food from a deli, carry-out, delivery food, or fast food? (Sample Count: 11169)
Self-Reported Response: How many times in the last 7 days did you purchase: prepared food from a deli, carry-out, delivery food, or fast food? (Sample Count: 6440)
Self-Reported Response: Where do you get the majority of your groceries? (Sample Count: 8208)
Self-Reported Response: What is the primary reason you shop there? (Sample Count: 8131)
Self-Reported Response: Not including plain water, were there any other times yesterday when you were drinking any beverages? (Sample Count: 11202)
Self-Reported Response: Were any of the beverages soft drinks such as cola, root beer, or gingerale? (Sample Count: 7513)
Self-Reported Response: Was the soft drink diet, regular or did you have both kinds? (Sample Count: 3037)
Sample Count: 10725
Self-Reported Response: Total amount of time spent in primary eating and drinking (in minutes)
## Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
## 1.00 30.00 60.00 68.66 90.00 508.00
Sample Count: 6061
Self-Reported Response: Total amount of time spent in secondary eating and drinking (in minutes)
## Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
## 1.00 10.00 15.00 31.02 30.00 990.00
Sample Count: 10932
Self-Reported Response: Last month, was your total household income before taxes more or less than (amount) per month?
Sample Count: 11135
Self-Reported Response: In the past 30 days, did you or any member of this household receive SNAP or food stamp benefits?
Sample Count: 5805
Self-Reported Response: In the last 30 days, did you or any member of your household receive benefits from the WIC program, that is, the Women, Infants, and Children program?
Sample Count: 5677
Self-Reported Response: Change in spouse or unmarried partner’s labor force status or full time or part time employment status between CPS and ATUS
The indepedent samples t-test below shows with high confidence that people who exercise have, on average, a lower BMI than people who don’t exercise.
##
## Welch Two Sample t-test
##
## data: x and y
## t = -12.917, df = 7218.6, p-value < 2.2e-16
## alternative hypothesis: true difference in means is not equal to 0
## 95 percent confidence interval:
## -1.904665 -1.402735
## sample estimates:
## mean of x mean of y
## 27.15812 28.81182
As the frequency of exercise increases, the positive effects of exercise will diminish. Let’s try taking the log transformation of the variable.
The indepedent samples t-test below shows with high confidence that the sample mean for BMI in the SNAP program is higher than the sample mean for people not in the program.
##
## Welch Two Sample t-test
##
## data: x and y
## t = 8.3221, df = 1261.2, p-value = 2.221e-16
## alternative hypothesis: true difference in means is not equal to 0
## 95 percent confidence interval:
## 1.469371 2.375842
## sample estimates:
## mean of x mean of y
## 29.49899 27.57639
The indepedent samples t-test below shows with high confidence that the sample mean for BMI in the WIC program is higher than the sample mean for people not in the program.
##
## Welch Two Sample t-test
##
## data: x and y
## t = 4.57, df = 397.73, p-value = 6.519e-06
## alternative hypothesis: true difference in means is not equal to 0
## 95 percent confidence interval:
## 0.9762109 2.4502044
## sample estimates:
## mean of x mean of y
## 29.16994 27.45674
| Dependent variable: | |||||
| BMI | |||||
| (1) | (2) | (3) | (4) | (5) | |
| Log_Exercise_Freq | -1.125*** | -1.080*** | -0.512*** | -0.508*** | |
| (0.075) | (0.250) | (0.074) | (0.074) | ||
| Sq_Log_Exercise_Freq | -0.023 | ||||
| (0.121) | |||||
| Excellent_Health | -5.767*** | -5.347*** | -5.160*** | ||
| (0.397) | (0.403) | (0.405) | |||
| Very_Good_Health | -4.052*** | -3.747*** | -3.564*** | ||
| (0.395) | (0.399) | (0.401) | |||
| Good_Health | -1.580*** | -1.392*** | -1.246** | ||
| (0.402) | (0.404) | (0.405) | |||
| Fair_Health | 0.108 | 0.199 | 0.266 | ||
| (0.438) | (0.439) | (0.439) | |||
| SNAP | -0.733** | ||||
| (0.234) | |||||
| Constant | 28.893*** | 28.887*** | 30.716*** | 30.966*** | 32.203*** |
| (0.102) | (0.109) | (0.385) | (0.388) | (0.568) | |
| Observations | 10,221 | 10,221 | 10,221 | 10,221 | 10,221 |
| R2 | 0.023 | 0.023 | 0.104 | 0.109 | 0.110 |
| Adjusted R2 | 0.022 | 0.022 | 0.104 | 0.108 | 0.109 |
| Residual Std. Error | 6.104 (df = 10219) | 6.104 (df = 10218) | 5.844 (df = 10216) | 5.830 (df = 10215) | 5.826 (df = 10214) |
| F Statistic | 236.038*** (df = 1; 10219) | 118.029*** (df = 2; 10218) | 297.647*** (df = 4; 10216) | 249.183*** (df = 5; 10215) | 210.261*** (df = 6; 10214) |
| Note: | p<0.05; p<0.01; p<0.001 | ||||
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| AIC (1) = 6.59910^{4} | AIC (2) = 6.59910^{4} | AIC (3) = 6.5110^{4} | AIC (4) = 6.50510^{4} | AIC (5) = 6.50410^{4} |
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Assumptions of Gauss-Markov Theorem
                        PASS: This is a weak assumption
                        PASS: Assumption based on prior knowledge of the data gathering process
                        PASS: Based on correlation matrix
                        PASS: Based on the plot below
                        FAIL: There is evidence of heteroscedasticity, so we will use heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors
                        FAIL: There is slight upward tick on the qq plot; however we can leverage OLS asymptotics with the large sample size
| Dependent variable: | ||||
| Health | ||||
| (1) | (2) | (3) | (4) | |
| Log_Exercise_Freq | -0.351*** | -0.297*** | ||
| (0.013) | (0.013) | |||
| BMI | 0.054*** | 0.049*** | ||
| (0.002) | (0.002) | |||
| Fast_Food_Freq | -0.022*** | -0.031*** | ||
| (0.005) | (0.004) | |||
| Constant | 2.840*** | 0.996*** | 2.533*** | 1.484*** |
| (0.017) | (0.048) | (0.014) | (0.052) | |
| Observations | 10,221 | 10,221 | 10,221 | 10,221 |
| R2 | 0.075 | 0.099 | 0.002 | 0.155 |
| Adjusted R2 | 0.074 | 0.099 | 0.002 | 0.155 |
| Residual Std. Error | 1.019 (df = 10219) | 1.006 (df = 10219) | 1.058 (df = 10219) | 0.974 (df = 10217) |
| F Statistic | 823.163*** (df = 1; 10219) | 1,124.116*** (df = 1; 10219) | 20.831*** (df = 1; 10219) | 625.544*** (df = 3; 10217) |
| Note: | p<0.05; p<0.01; p<0.001 | |||
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| AIC (1) = 2.9410^{4} | AIC (2) = 2.91210^{4} | AIC (3) = 3.01710^{4} | AIC (4) = 2.84710^{4} |
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https://www.bls.gov/tus/ehmintcodebk1416.pdf
https://www.bls.gov/tus/ehmquestionnaire1416.pdf
http://www.regulations.justia.com/regulations/fedreg/2016/05/02/2016-10187.html
https://www.kaggle.com/bls/eating-health-module-dataset
https://www.bls.gov/tus/ehdatafiles.htm
https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub-details/?pubid=42817
http://www.stanford.edu/~hastie/Papers/gap.pdf